The geography of Islam

New research by Pew has mapped what most astute geographers already know: Islam’s geography is not just a ‘Middle East’ affair. In fact, as the image below shows quite clearly, only one so-called ‘Middle Eastern’ country (Egypt) ranks in the five countries with the largest Muslim populations (the others are Indonesia, Pakistan, India and Bangladesh).

Two other interesting features of Islam’s geography: the approximately one million Muslims living in Argentina; the fact that there are more Muslims living in France than in many so-called ‘Middle Eastern’ countries. Maybe you can spot others – if so, post a comment! Read the full Pew report here.

An excellent survey of the world geography of political forms of Islam is Peter Mandaville’s _Global Political Islam_. Mandaville is involved with the Pew Center report and makes much use of it in his book
Gerry Kearns